Yeah I know, there’s a wizard on the label. Celestial Seasonings has always had great art on their labels. When I was a kid, I used to collect my Mom’s tea boxes for the pretty artwork. I still have a few pasted in my old scrap books. Like a lot of kids, I loved pictures of wizards, unicorn, dragons, and other mythical creatures.
I’ve had over thirty years to get over my obsession. So I’d like to think I chose this tea because the combination of ingredients looked interesting. No, really, they did! I like mint and I like magic. Chicory, orange peel, and cinnamon? Mmm, this sounded different and I’m always up for an adventure. I brought it home and proceeded to brew up some Mint Magic.

The spell failed and not just once. I’m on my third or fourth round of this and it doesn’t matter whether I diffuse it cold in the refrigerator or brew it up hot. It tastes like mint and that’s all. No chicory, no orange, no cinnamon. Magic? What magic? All I can taste is mint.
Worse, it isn’t even really good mint. Here in the Ozarks, we get a kind of wild relative of mint on our lawns in early Spring. That’s what this smells like. Though it has a nice strong wild scent when you bruise it underfoot or cut it with the lawnmower, it’s a bit obnoxious and isn’t really the quality I would expect in a boxed tea.
That’s not to say this tea is nasty or anything. It’s OK. But it’s just mint. No magic to it at all and really quite unremarkable. So unremarkable according to my husband that I forgot that we tried this some years ago.
Funny,I was quite certain upon seeing and reading the label that I had never tasted this but my husband insists we have bought it before. Maybe he’s immune to its power but I’m not. So some day I will likely walk into the store and, hypnotized by the picture of Merlin and false promises of chicory, orange peel, and cinnamon, buy another box.
Cause that’s where the magic comes in. Ah, now I see….